Conferences are a regular offering for both corporate employees and business owners, and come at a large financial outlay to both parties.
My question is how do you measure the value and ROI for such events?
Having just spent the time and considerable money to attend a global conference represented by 56 countries and nearly 1000 attendees in London, how do I measure the personal return on the costs outlayed?
Apart from airfares, accomodation, meals, R&R etc there is the opportunity cost of physically being away from your income earning business and personal time!
Is it a simple case of looking at the value of the content learnt from the conference and determining whether the potential enhancements you make to your business the measure? Do you look at it as a return based on your personal development and growth? Or do you look at a more tangible formula based on ongoing financial gains from the content learnt?
Upon reflection I am not sure how to self justify (of do I even need to?). From a learning space, I certainly gained many levels of growth so does this make it worthwhile? Would I do the same again? Probably YES as I did gain a lot from it, not that I have worked out how to apply yet, so does this undermine my personal ROI thoughts?
I would be interested on people’s thoughts on this matter!
Tony Ozanne
I agree, Tony, it’s a real complicated analysis. There’s a lot of factors that can’t be turned into numbers, much less dollars. At the end of the day, would you do it again? Good enough.
Tony, thanks for sharing. I agree that it can be a valuable exercise if you apply the learning to the business otherwise you might as well consider the whole exercise as R&R.